With the entirety of Heartcatch Precure, I honestly need to say I went into it looking forward, and...I was pretty disappointed. Not because Erika and Itsuki's arcs are written weirdly, it's the entire thing. This season has a lot of pretty good twists and plot developments, but they fail to follow through on anything. Tsubomi for instance, one of the best characters, promises to change "bit by bit," although, from an objective point of view...she's still the exact same person she was all those episodes ago. I understand that in order to keep the characters identifiable but this shouldn't be exaggerated to the point of obstructing character development. Tsubomi was even wearing her glasses in the final episode, which I believe symbolized her "shy" nature that she'd outgrown earlier in the series (written in tandem with her character wearing them less and less, until they stopped appearing almost completely.) For her to wear them in the finale, after the battle, is an indicator that her character hasn't changed; she's still the same introverted, shy person she was at the beginning, self-actualization or not. As for other character arcs, all I have to say is that they were extremely uneven in their pacing, and their development. If we take, say, Sasorina's character arc, let's look at it a little bit. I made a comment earlier that her character arc began in episode 25, and was put on the backburner and stagnated until episode 40. This is not an exaggeration; she still appeared to fight the Precure in typical episodes as if nothing unusual had happened (besides changes that were too subtle to even consider that she was acting differently.) Kumojacky and Cobraja's redemption arcs on the other hand, felt rushed; they were crammed into the span of two episodes, the latter of which being the second to final time they appeared (having been reborn like Sasorina in episode 49)
I would say the characters who I was most disappointed to see were Dune and Sabaku, for a multitude of reasons. As I mentioned with Dune many times, Dune is power scaled far beyond the average villain; he was able to practically annihilate the Precure "without" his powers in his official debut appearance, and died to a single punch from Blossom in the finale. Sabaku is unfortunate as his character itself leaves more questions than answers. Here are just a few off the top of my head: Why did he feel the need to create Dark Precure? Why was he so intent on hurting his daughter? Was he sadistic, or was this an attempt to test her strength? Did Dune manipulate him? On the last question, this is made more difficult to answer as Sabaku went to Dune of his own free will. His entire character arc needs more explanation, not to mention the complete lack of handling of any level of grief or resentment Moonlight held toward her father. Based on the amount of grief she felt based solely on Cologne dying, I find it near impossible to believe she would have no ill will towards her father whatsoever, and the series' failure to address this simply complicates the issue, since it isn't even mentioned afterwards. Dark Precure also needed more explanation; all we received was a vague explanation that Sabaku created him, but the answer left out the perhaps more valuable reason of why she was created in the first place. Why was she suddenly able to understand Sabaku's love for her at the end, if she was programmed to not feel compassion or emotions? Did Dune convince him to create her? Did he create her before he turned evil? Overall, this series leaves more questions than answers, which isn't something any fan wants to hear. I would also mention that this series is not as "dark" as, even previous seasons. Fresh Precure, Splash Star, even Yes 5 all had moments much darker than anything here, and while that doesn't make it inherently bad, a series
needs to have a reason to be dark without appearing as though it's only for shock value. Compare say, themes of communism present in Fresh, the Kiryuu sisters dying in Splash Star, even Desperiah, a pure out-and-out villain at face value, sealing herself within the Earth to save everyone. I feel this review has gone on long enough and would like to end it here, although Cure Moonlight's character specifically can be analyzed for hours. I regret that this series was not one I enjoyed more, but it did give a solid effort. Final rating: 4/10.
